Guitars Thread

Hi there
I think guitar is quite a popular instrument and many of us own, play or wants opinions about guitars. For now I searched the forum and haven’t seen a thread dedicated to guitars, so here you are.:
Guitars Thread
I’m not a moderator or Envato official, so I can’t say “the rules of this thread…”, but I would like to see here:
- posts about what instruments you own + photo + opinions about (price, sound, playability, design, quality of construction, etc)
- amps, pedals, virtual effects for guitars (opinions, links)
- questions (I want to get THIS guitar, what do you think? do anybody here have/ had one ? how sound ? is this ** a good price for it?)
- technical details about certain sounds (I want to get this sound like here YouTube link in min 0:37)

I hope many of us will find this useful.

Great thread, Mihai!

I own a few guitars, but my main guitar both for playing live and recording is a Tacoma DM28 . It’s my understanding that it’s one of the last ones Tacoma made before being bought out by Fender, and Tacoma especially appealed to me because its somewhat local to where I am. I like the playability and it’s got great volume (Tacomas are famous for this) – just a really beefy dreadnought. Also the neck is a bit wider than a usual steel string which is great for my clumsy fingers. The downside (especially for my style of playing) is that it’s not the greatest finger picking guitar. I think I’ll have the Tacoma for the rest of my life, but someday I hope to pick up a better recording guitar, perhaps one of the medium to high end Taylors for finger work.

I have a Kremona classical, which is pretty good, solid wood and plays well, but I’d like to upgrade that as well within the next couple of years. I’ve had a few intonation and buzzing problems on it that I need to get checked out.

I rarely if ever use any effects besides some subtractive EQ to high pass out the bottom end and a bit of compression on acoustic guitar. I’m not a genius at mixing, and usually any additive EQ just sounds worse to me so I err on choosing the right mic/preamp for the job. Same goes for reverb – I have not yet been able to dial into a reverb (even using Aether!) that’s listenable to me so I usually either leave it out completely or add a barely noticeable amount. Of course that speaks more to my engineering skills than anything else .

Another couple of random things I’ve found about recording acoustic guitar that might go against conventional wisdom:

- Stereo recording sounds really good on a single track but is really hard to mix IMO . So I normally stick with a single mic, though that’s not going to stop me from eventually getting another KM 184 + Great River pre just to see if that still holds true with really expensive equipment

- Although anybody who knows anything about recording acoustics will tell you to always record with a fresh set of strings, I dislike this sound and prefer a set of strings that has been played on a couple of weeks.

Thanks jhunger for your post. Interesting thing, I also stick to recording mono acoustic guitars, somehow fits better in the mix. By recording mono I mean recording with just one mic, but I have two guitars, left and right, usually heavy panned.

That Tacoma (if that’s what I hear in your tracks) sounds very nice, very powerful and big.

My gear is like this:
Electric guitars
Epiphone SG Special (got it as a gift from my band’s drummer), Vorson V-190, Vorson EDG -46 (Vorson is a Chinese-Hungarian brand, quite unknown, cheap but the quality is ok)
Acoustic Guitar:
Fender CD-60CE Nat (made in China) and some Soviet mandolin found in some basement by my band’s drummer (again from him).

I hope soon I can take some photos and post here

Quick question (actually the reason I wanted to make this thread).
I want to get a new guitar and I have my mind set on Les Paul type. I love to have a Floyd Rose tremolo but it’s not really the biggest issue if it’s missing. For now I found some guitars that are really appealing to me.
Hagstrom Select Swede

637 EUR
Epiphone Les Paul Plus Pro/FX DB

489 EUR
Opinions ? Advices ?

Hello Mihai_Sorohan , this is a great thread and very interesting to see what other people are using, so here goes my opinion on your guitar dilemma…

Les Paul epiphone: Nice sounding guitars and you get that beefy round sound. Good for blues rock and hard rock/metal. If you can afford to spend a little more money i would get the Les paul from Gibson instead of epiphone.. They are strongly build (last longer), sound better and cost about 800-900 euro new…(check out Thomann music store)

Hagstrom Select Swede: I never tried it but it seems from the looks that it might be similar to PRS which are great versatile guitars available to play anything.. If its really like that then the price is quite cheap and you will be able to play almost anything on that thing!

It all depends what style you are playing… i would get the les paul cause i just like more classic rock and blues music…

I own a highway one US 2006 telecaster, and a really nice vintage pre fender Stephen Stills White Falcon 2001 model…i love them both! Even though Gretsch is my weakness

See video this guy plays it like a dream !

As for amps…i currently use Marshal …they are very good solid amps and very reliable. They have a history of great musicians using them

My dream is a vintage fender amp but i got to save money, and also make some room in the studio

Would love to see that soviet mandolin of yours…i love old instruments!

Thanks Creativedot for your answer. I had once a Gretsch in my hands. Awesome instruments. As “old skool” they might look, the playability and the sound it’s fantastic.
As for getting a Gibson instead of Epiphone… I would but the price difference is quite big (for a Gibson with Floyd Rose).

I don’t play the guitar myself, but the guitarist I use swears by Bogner amps. Who am I to argue with him?

Finding a decent room to record that great sound from the amp in is a different matter entirely…..!

Bogner amps are great…i was actually between a bogner and a marshall,....i ended up with a marshall because the bogner i wanted was really very expensive…

Finding a decent room and a microphone can be tricky.. out of curiosity what microphones do you guys use? I use a cheap Rhodes condenser mic…i am happy with it…but i know that i should be getting a decent one soon!

Some more stuff from my guitarist friend. He’s the only guy I work with, but he really knows what he’s doing.

Taylor 714c- The standard acoustic. Has more of a Modern/Pop sound than say a Martin.

Fender ‘52 Reissue Telecaster-Good for Modern Rock and Country. Also has a great pick-up setting for New Orleans funk, should you ever get asked to write something like that.

Fender Eric Johnson Signature Stratocaster-I use this one for Stevie Ray Vaughan-style Blues guitar, as well as the rhythm guitar sound you hear on Michael Jackson records.

PRS Custom 24-This is used for heavy guitar parts and power chords. Also has a really unique sound that’s good for sound-design type stuff and the whammy-bar provides a lot of pitch-bend options.

Gibson ES-335-This is for BB King blues, Jazz, and R&B. It actually also sounds great doing power chords, so I’ll have to remember to bring it the next time we do a heavy track.

Danelectro Electric 12-string-This does the Beatles lead sound on songs like ‘Anytime at all.’

Fender Jazz Bass-for, ya know, Bass.

He also has a Ukelele by Kala, and a Mandolin by Kentucky, and a Dobro which he let a friend borrow so he doesn’t have the model right now. I’ll try and find out the details.

Personally I am a VERY big fan of the Fender 52 Telecaster, and we’ve also done some awesome stuff with the 12-string and PRS .

Hope this was helpful.

Here’s my setup:

Acoustic: Crafter TV200 CEQ /NV

This is my baby, works as well in the studio as live. Sound is georgeous to my ears.

Electric:

Epiphone Les Paul Special II sunburst, played directly into the interface, emulated with different vst fx setups.

Due to the fact that I’m a natural keyboardplayer and not a guitarist I’d thought I throw in some sample develeopers that I’ve come across that help me a lot in creating convincing guitar tracks:

Orange Tree Samples – Acoustic Evolution and Evolution Strawberyy Guitar, imho the best sampled and mostly intuituive playable guitars on a keyboard available today. Especially the acoustic guitar sounds incredible.

For the more heavier stuff I use a lot of Impact Soundworks “Shreddage”, together with OTS Strawberry they build ap a very nice team.

For nylon guitar sounds I throw in ILYA EFIMOV NYLON GUITAR , a library which I don’t have yet but the demos seem to be top notch, sounds extremely realistic.

So far for my point of view. Due to limited guitar skills I like to mix a lot between samples and live played guitars (as far as my skills allow)

Hope this also helps all the non-guitarists out there

Cheers Dirk

Edit: Forgot to mention Pettinhouse, they also have some great libs.